J2EE Developer Interview Questions & Answers


J2EE developers are responsible for the development of web and software applications that are specific to  Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE or JavaEE). They create cutting-edge enterprise-level (ETL) internet applications for businesses. Java is one of the most popular programming languages, and J2EE developers have advanced coding skills that utilize it.

Whether you're a job seeker preparing to be interviewed for the role of J2EE Developer or an employer preparing to interview candidates for J2EE Developer position, these J2EE Developer interview questions will help you prepare yourself for the job interview session.

J2EE Developer Interview Questions

Below are a list of some skill-based J2EE Developer interview questions.

  1. How many years of experience do you have with coding in general?
  2. How many years of experience do you have with J2EE?
  3. Do you have experience developing J2EE applications?
  4. What background experience do you feel is most relevant to the job?
  5. What were your primary duties in your previous position?
  6. Do you hold any relevant certifications?
  7. How do you inform yourself about industry developments?
  8. Do you have any experience with leading IT projects?
  9. What has been the most significant challenge you have experienced using Enterprise Java?
  10. What is J2EE?
  11. What is an Enterprise Bean and what are its types?
  12. What is a session bean and what are its three types?
  13. What are the steps for stateless EJB creation?
  14. What is a java message service and what are its advantages?
  15. What is a session facade and is it important for software development?
  16. How would you describe persistence API? What are the key elements?
  17. Name and describe the ACID properties of transactions.
  18. What are the declarative transaction types and what do they mean?
  19. Which web servers can or cannot run EJB?
  20. What components comprise J2EE applications?
  21. What are common J2EE clients?
  22. What is a J2EE container?
  23. Define Hibernate, and give some examples of its limitations and advantages.
  24. What is ORM, and how does it work in J2EE?
  25. What does connection pooling mean?
  26. What is a servlet?
  27. What are some advantages of ORM?
  28. What are the current versions of Enterprise JavaBeans that have been released so far?
  29. From your own personal experience knowledge, which do you believe is more useful, stateless or stateful bean?
  30. Which do you believe offers more benefits, Bean Managed Persistence or Container Managed Persistence?
  31. Describe the differences between define context, initial context and session context.
  32. Can you make EJB capable of handling multiple transactions? Why or why not?
  33. Illustrate the callback methods for session beans and entity beans.
  34. What is the difference between conversational and non-conversational interaction?
  35. Describe the differences between un-repeatable and phantom.
  36. What does the term "hot deployment" mean, and in what context do you use it?
  37. Describe the design goals of J2EE architecture.
  38. What are the roles of a J2EE developer?
  39. What is a hashtable, and how is it used in J2EE?
  40. Can you name the different kinds of JSP tags?
  41. Can you define URN?
  42. Can you define EJB?
  43. What is an EJB container and what are the types?
  44. Describe the differences between a web server and an application server.
  45. What is a module in J2EE, and what are the four specific modules used?
  46. What is the difference between .ear, .jar and .war files?
  47. What is a singleton session bean and how is it different from a stateless and stateful session bean?
  48. What is the difference between a message-driven bean and an entity bean?
  49. What is the point-to-point model?
  50. What is the publisher and subscriber model and how does it differ from the PTP model?
  51. Name some attributes associated with javax-ejb-stateful and javax-ejb.EJB.
  52. Describe the three primary levels for interceptor method application.
  53. What are some of the java types you can map by using @lob annotation?
  54. When was EJB originally developed and by whom? Who took it over?
  55. What are the technologies that you use in J2EE?
  56. Can you map more than a single table in CMP?
  57. Can entity beans create parenthetical methods?
  58. Describe the callback annotations for stateless, stateful, entity and message-driven beans.
  59. In EJB, what is a timer service?
  60. Which annotation do you use to inject EJB or datasource into another EJB?
  61. What do JNDI and EJBQL mean? How do they relate to EJB?
  62. In EJB, what is the difference between application-level exception and system-level exception?
  63. What does the term "re-entrant" mean? Can session or entity beans be re-entrant?
  64. Define "in-memory replication." Why is it important?
  65. What is the ripple effect?
  66. Describe what abstract schema is.
  67. In EJB, what is the difference between "find a method" and "select method"?
  68. What are clones and what are they linked by?
  69. Define EJB architecture.
  70. What are the most basic requirements for a CMP entity-focused class in EJB 2.0 compared to EJB 1.1?
  71. What does EJB QL mean?
  72. How can you access Enterprise JavaBeans through active server pages?
  73. What are active server pages? Why are they important in EJB?
  74. What is an EJBDoclet?
  75. What is a static initializer block? Is it legal in Enterprise JavaBeans?

J2EE Developer Interview Questions and Answers

Every interview is different and the questions may vary. However, there are lots of general questions that get asked at every interview.

Below are some common questions you'd expect during J2EE Developer interviews. Click on each question to see how to answer them.

  1. Why Do You Want To Leave Your Current Job?
  2. What is Your Greatest Strength?
  3. Tell Me About Yourself
  4. Why Do You Want This Job?
  5. Are You a Leader or a Follower?
  6. What Is Your Greatest Accomplishment?
  7. What is Your Salary Expectation?
  8. Do You Have Any Questions for Us?
  9. Why Should We Hire You?
  10. What is Your Greatest Weakness?